Alberto Lugo
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Alberto Lugo (born 1961) is a New Yorker who was convicted and sentenced to a term of 48 years, with no possibility of parole until 2041, on July 28, 2000, of several charges, including rape, attempted rape, and sodomy. Lugo had been arrested and charged with assaulting three women. Lugo appealed his conviction on the grounds that he was mentally impaired as evinced by his decades long impersonation of Alex Ramos and that he was not permitted to represent himself at his trial. Lugo lost the appeal in the Appellate Division, First Department in December, 2006.
Although Lugo is Hispanic, it is not clearly known which country his parents came from.
Lugo used to hang around, but not be friends with, boxer Alex Ramos and a number of other neighborhood boys during the late 1970s and early 1980s. As Ramos gained prominency as a four time golden glove boxing champion, Lugo allegedly became Ramos' impostor, telling women that he was Ramos, to try to conquer them.
Ramos, infuriated upon finding out, had a street fight with Lugo. This apparently did not deter Lugo from identifying himself as Alex Ramos.
Lugo may have been involded in a robbery in 1983 at a Philadelphia bank. Randy Gordon, then editor of Ring Magazine, received a call at the magazine's offices from the FBI asking if he knew a boxer by the name of "Alex Ramos". Upon answering that he indeed knew Ramos, the FBI told him that Ramos was wanted for a robbery committed in Philadelphia one hour and a half before. Gordon told them that Ramos just happened to be sitting across him inside his office, and that it was impossible for Ramos to have been involved the robbery, since Gordon and Ramos had just been finished doing a two hours photo-shoot for the boxing publication. Ramos' name was cleared from the case, but Gordon has concluded that Lugo was involved in the robbery, once again, using the alias "Alex Ramos".
Lugo has been accused of raping at least seven women since the early 1980s. According to those affected by his cases, such as Mr. Ramos himself, in order to hone his skills to carry out crimes while imposting "Alex Ramos", Lugo studied the people around Ramos, and their family members and friends. He began stalking Gordon's family and finding out facts in order to keep searching for possible female victims and to make a living by asking people to help him for his next "title" bout.
According to reports, he would steal as much as 3,000 US dollars from people, while telling them he was "Alex Ramos" and he needed the money to "keep training for (his) upcoming title bout, which (would) take place at the Madison Square Garden".
Randy Gordon allegedly, and not knowing who he was going to meet, ran into Lugo in 1997, when Gordon was director of boxing at Foxwoods Casino, in Connecticut. He received a man in his office, this man told him that "Alex Ramos" was awaiting for him at the resort's casino area. Upon seeing the subject, Gordon could tell that it was Lugo and not Ramos, but he says he was amazed at finding out how much Lugo knew about his private affairs and his family, including a young daughter. This scared Gordon, who immediately contacted the casinos security and asked them to keep an eye on the man he had spoken with.
Unknown but only to his family and closest friends, Gordon wore a golden gloves necklace that had been made from a mold of one of Alex Ramos' real golden glove championship necklaces. According to Gordon, Lugo asked him about the necklace, at which point Gordon worried about his safety and that of his family. Lugo supposedly also asked about Shelly Finkel, the manager who would later on work with Mike Tyson and who was involved in Ramos' boxing career.
Lugo apparently lured women into hotel rooms with him by using the excuse he was going to fight for a world title soon, and that he wanted them (his victims) to be ring card girls, offering the women 3,000 dollars to participate in his upcoming "fights". According to reports, he also told them to go with him to his room where they could meet Shelly Finkel, whom the women supposedly thought was actually a woman.
Just before he was arrested, Lugo supposedly visited Alex Ramos' sister and introduced himself as Alex. Ramos' sister, however, did not believe him and soon had him off her property.
When Lugo was arrested in February of 1999, he alleguedly told the police his name was "Alex Ramos", so he went into the arrest book as "Alex Ramos". The New York state police knew he wasn't Alex Ramos, but gave Mr. Ramos' name to the press in hopes that other women who believed they had been raped by Alex Ramos would come forward and testify against Lugo. While strictly a police strategy, the fact that Alex Ramos is a high profile personality in New York allowed for Lugo's arrest to become a large media event in New York, and Mr. Ramos suffered emotionally as some acquaintances stopped being his friend, believing that he was involved in crime.
The second reason that the police told the press they had arrested "Alex Ramos" was that, legally at least, they were forced to identify the prisoner to the media with the name he had given them upon booking.
After being found guilty, he was sentenced to a long jail term. Ramos preferred to leave the situation behind him, choosing not to accuse Lugo for being his impostor.
